I was motivated.
And I was creative. I was in a process of creating a world record.
My Creativity had nothing to do with aesthetic taste that expects an applause or get some kind of price tag attached to it.
My creativity was provoking much stir and turbulence rocking all the boats that came in my way. I was taking big steps.
I was taking big steps as I was trying to test how far my longest footstep would and could reach. My footsteps were breaking their own created record that they made just moments ago. It was not my concern where I was breaking my record and creating a new one. I was in the middle of my classroom and I was supposed to complete some work sheet that was lying on the table like an anchored boat in the midst of a very turbulent sea. Creativity can happen anywhere. I was that hurricane tossing those dolphins up and down the air to sea and back to air again right under the suspicious gaze of the whales.’All will get a chance.’
I was walking through the class around those desks and chairs, knees and elbows measuring my footsteops breaking record after record.
“Can someone please stop Tito?” Who knows whose voice it was!
Wasn’t that unjust? I have seen all kinds of world records getting created. Longest nail, longest mustache, longest stare, longest time under water and longest time hanging upside down. Creative people fill the wonderful world with all kinds of presentations that are displayed in world record books.
Just because I was in a classroom did not mean someone should stop me from being creative.
Someone did stop me.
So I had to postpone my world record for a new moment. I came back to the anchored boat. The whales could have their time later.

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Things happen for reasons.

For some reason there happened to be invisible kangaroos standing on either side of the street as I walked this morning at 6 a.m. They were waiting for me to pass by them so that they could wave their hats and cheer.

Although I could not see them I knew that they were waving their fore –arms (or legs) at me as high as their kangaroo limits could allow them.

There must be a reason for sure why they chose me out of the millions of people who inhabit the world

So I tried to maintain my Titoistic pride by flapping my hands – sometimes my left hand, sometimes my right hand, sometimes both hands– depending on the thickness of the invisible kangaroo crowd in my most dignified manner. I tried my best to acknowledge their presence that remained invisible because of their transparent skin, muscles and bones. (You cannot just deny something because they are transparent).

And something told me that there was a transparent cross-eyed kangaroo stepping behind me, hopping with her charming kangaroo -gracefulness with a basket of delicately chosen flowers from her invisible garden.
I needed to slow down for her sake and that was something mother would not understand.

“Tito, stop turning back and hurry. I need to cook breakfast!” for some reason she would not believe that there was this invisible cross-eyed kangaroo trying to keep up with me with her basket of delicately chosen flowers, hopping with kangaroo-gracefulness.

“What if she showed up?” I think I had a good point there. But she did not happen to show up.

Things do not happen for reasons.

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Since I was up from four a.m. on Wednesday and looked like a brand new charged battery by quarter to six, mother took me out for a six a.m. morning walk. She hoped I would slow down.
And again on Tuesday, since I was wide -awake from four and had the similar sort of motivation, mother took me out for another six a.m. morning walk.
By Friday I got used to six a.m.
Today, on a Saturday, six a.m. morning walk is an old habit.

Since we are walking everyday at six a.m., I am beginning to form an opinion about it. Six a.m. is getting built up within me as a process that includes the sound of my footsteps on the streets, casual cats sitting in the middle of the streets, mysterious looking trees that seem to hide their staring eyes somewhere in patches of darkness and of course those street lamps that light up certain parts of the street and foot paths in their conservative manners.

The process called six a.m. includes a certain shade of morning that I would never have experienced within the walls of my home. My nostrils breathe in and out the somber silence and the shade of early morning as the light from the eastern sky tries to push away the reluctant dark patches in their silent battle.

It makes me feel defensive about darkness.

The world looks so much simpler without those busy colours and the dynamics of movements that future time of the day would reveal, making the world a vast field of confusion. Perhaps only those cats can understand. Couldn’t the world be one long street with lamp posts on either side?

Six a.m. shows a perfect world where all one needs to do is walk under one lamp post to another wondering what is in the mind of that cat who just moved under one of those last patches of darkness that is still holding up against the morning.

I leave some of my Titoism there for the cat to discover. – Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

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I am once again thrilled to present LB/RB readers with something from Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.

Born in India, Tito is a non-verbal autistic person with a considerable talent for writing. His first book is (as I understand it) soon to be followed by a second. Enjoy.

Why should I go bumping against people who were jogging?

“Tito, don’t go that way. You are interrupting the people who are jogging.” I could hear my aide’s voice – loud and clear coming from a very fragile part of the world that I was trying to save at that moment.

I had a responsibility of saving a very scared and fragile world from the load of the sky that was threatening to drop any moment on it, if not for me and my responsible shoulders on which the sky had settled down, while I was walking around the trail.

Since I was feeling very responsible I did have my reasons for not obeying petty commands like, “Tito you need to walk this side of the trail,” or “Tito you need not run into any one jogging across from the other direction!”

The load of sky made me drift to the other side towards them who were coming towards my direction. Balancing the sky is never easy

Since my aide did not see how I was saving the planet, he suspected that I was deliberately trying to block the passage of those serious-body-workers who have goals of sweating profusely so that they can mark the trail with distinguished vapours that evaporate from their individual biological fluids with independent chemical compositions.

Carrying the load of sky is not an easy and anybody’s work. And if people with whom I constantly bumped into had a problem comprehending it, that is not my problem.

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I got a bit spoiled with the grey matter/white matter blog (gmwm.autistics.org). Not because it gave me a forum to explore my own ideas, but because it gave me a place to read more by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.

Tito guest blogged a piece here on LeftBrain/RightBrain.

I miss reading Titoisms. I could use some crosseyed invisible kangaroos. I could use his uplifting statements.

I hope all is well with Tito. Tito, if you read this, know that I’d love to see something from you. I bet there are others who feel the same as well.

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By Guest Blogger TITO RAJARSHI MUKHOPADHYAY

I was either sitting in my class room or on one of those hanging clouds, which I saw outside before entering the school building, dangling my legs down towards the earth.

Wherever I was I was fascinated. How many heads can the earth hold? So I had to jump down only to realize that perhaps I had a big change inside or outside me. I had a definite idea that I got transformed into a hat. And as a hat, which was possessed with fascination and curiosity about those many heads on earth I was left with no option but to stand up and get busy.

I first happened to sniff Mr. Butler’s head, which happened to be bald and shine from the light of the fluorescent lamps of the classroom, reflecting them in a mysterious way. ‘Would it reflect my nose too?’ Mr. Butler had no idea about my keen interest on his head. So he had to stand up. And because he stood up I had to move on to a new head.

This was the head of Simon or Dan. The name did not matter much to me now. The head mattered. It was a hair filled head and there was enough room to sniff. Sniffing a hair filled head needs a good experience. You would not know what mystery it hides below the hairs. From my past experience I have known that each hair filled head is a smelling mine by its own rights specially, during a midday. I think Simon or Dan, whoever was the owner of that head enjoyed my nosey quest. That is because like me who is affected by Titoism, he was affected by Simonism or Danism.

However his one on one aide Ms. Jackson did not approve of my inspection. So I had no option but move on towards her head. It was complex!

By now there was a murmur of alertness in the class. Maybe they could sense the presence of a very nosey hat around which was dutifully completing what it was supposed to do. -Smell the rest of the heads!

I came back home later with some memories of learning about the many smells I collected in my olfactory channel.

After all we go to school to learn.

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